Fox Corporation CEO says he would welcome the new competition if Donald Trump started a rival network

• During a recent earnings call, Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch said he is open to competition from a possible Trump-founded competitor to Fox News.
• While Fox News has long been a focus of Trump and his allies, in recent months, the network has distanced itself from some prominent supporters of the president.
• The president has instead spoken favorably about One America News Network.

During an earnings call on Tuesday morning, Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch openly embraced the idea of new competition from a possible Donald Trump-founded media network.

While Fox News has long been a focus of Trump and his allies, in recent months, the network has distanced itself from some prominent supporters of the president, especially those who were giving validity to coronavirus conspiracy theories. This and other criticisms of the president's actions have led Trump to criticize the network and often speak favorably of One America News Network, which has a far lower distribution than Fox News, but was recently brought to more households by AT&T earlier this year.

In a recent media appearance, Trump went on Rush Limbaugh's show and said Fox News is "a much different thing that it was four years ago. Somebody said, 'What is the biggest difference?' I said the biggest difference is Fox," according to Deadline.

The Wall Street Journal in January reported that Trump allies were exploring a possible acquisition of OANN. In May, Vanity Fair reported that investors "aligned" with Donald Trump Jr. were exploring a possible investment, but its CEO said the network wasn't looking to sell itself and that he wasn't aware of any plans to sell to Trump Jr.

With speculation surrounding what the president would do if he lost the election, Fox Corp's CEO was asked Tuesday about his thoughts on Trump possibly starting a rival network, and how Fox News would think about the move "competitively."

"We love competition. We have always thrived with competition," Murdoch said. "And we have strong competition now. I would say the only difference today versus some years ago, as our audience has grown and our reach has grown, we see our competition as no longer only cable news providers, but also as the traditional broadcast networks."

"And as you know, Fox News has been the No. 1 network, including broadcast networks now, as I mentioned, through — from Labor Day through to election day," he added.

Murdoch also claimed Fox News reaches a broader spectrum of viewers, as the channel brings in more independent voters over its competitors MSNBC and CNN.

Other topics discussed on the Fox Corp. earnings call included the performance of Fox's local affiliates and the overall ratings for the Fox Corporation networks, as live sports have resumed.